In an interview with Variety published December 3rd, Richard Gere made rare comment about Oscars ban. The 20-year ban from the Academy Awards came about after the actor went off-script at the live show.
The 76-year-old actor, known for being an outspoken human rights activist, recently spoke up about the controversy he brought up by denouncing China’s “horrendous, horrendous human rights issue” in Tibet while presenting the 1993 Academy Awards.
“I didn’t take it particularly personally,” Gere said in the interview on Wednesday. “I didn’t think there were any bad guys in the situation. I do what I do and I certainly don’t mean anyone any harm. I mean to harm anger. I mean to harm exclusion.”
He mentioned his activism was inspired by the Dalai Lama, his longtime friend and the subject of the 2025 documentary he executive-produced. However, he never discussed the controversial Oscars speech with the Nobel Peace Prize winner.
“I mean to harm human rights abuses, but I try to stay as close to where His Holiness comes from… that everyone is redeemable, and in the end, everyone has to be redeemed or none of us [are]. So in that sense, I don’t take it personally,” he continued.
The 20-year ban began in 1993. During the speech, he was supposed to list the nominees for Best Art Direction. “Howard’s End” ultimately won. But he decided to go off script, saying, “… if something miraculous, really king of movie-like, could happen here, where we could all kind of send love and truth and a kind of sanity to Deng Xiaoping right now in Beijing, that he will take his troops and take the Chinese away from Tibet and allow people to live as free independent people again.”
The actor didn’t return to the Academy Awards until 2013.
Make sure to check out the documentary he executive-produced about the Dalai Lama, Wisdom of Happiness.